In this thread, bodswood says he doesn’t believe that gay people should be allowed to adopt children. (At first he was uneasy about it, but later came out to oppose it.)
I asked several times about whether he would support taking children away from gay parents who have children of their own. He dodged the question. Now I don’t expect to ever get a straight (pun intended) answer from bodswood. However, it got me to wonder if other people who don’t support the right of homosexuals to adopt would go so far as to take children away from their birth parents if they are gay. Their reason for opposing adoption is that the kids will be harmed in some way. Is that potential “harm” there for gay birth parents also? If not, doesn’t that give lie to the fear with adoption?
So, if you oppose allowing gay people to adopt, would you take my son away from me AND his mother (who is a lesbian)?
My godfather was gay. Had my parents died, he would have been our legal guardian. Except he lived in Florida, and by their laws, he would not have been allowed to adopt us (and yes, he was openly gay). I would have loved to have him for my adoptive parent - he was an amazing and wonderful man who passed away twelve years ago. And I still miss him - in his honor, we’re forgoing favors at our wedding and making a donation to an AIDS-related charity in his name - because I wanted him to be a part of our day somehow. I would give anything to have him dance with me when I’m a married woman. He was a caring, gentle, kind man who would have made a wonderful father, and if he were still here, I would entrust my life and that of my unborn childrens’ lives to him.
So bodswood wouldn’t even give him that chance. You would want to take away the right my PARENTS wanted to give him because they TRUSTED and LOVED him. Without considering the basic human need to love - for some people, that love means parenting, whether you’re gay or straight. And why immediately dismiss anyone who wants to give a child that love simply because of their sexuality? We have enough children in the system now who need to be loved. They deserve the chance to BE loved and BE parented.
This is a touchy subject. And it’s also the anniversary of his death this week, so I’m a bit more sensitive to these issues.
Are you saying you do oppose allowing gay people to adopt children, Abbie Carmichael? If so, why? And why is that not a disqualifier for birth parents?
As many kids as there are out there with no one to love them I don’t care if a person is straight, gay or purple with pink polka-dots, if they can provide a stable influence and good home for a kid then I support them adopting.
Turn on the tv any given day and you can see another kid killed because of abuse or their parent’s neglect.
A good parent is a good parent straight or gay or whatever…doesn’t matter.
One basis for the resistance to gay adoption is that gay male relationships are believed to break up at a higher rate than heterosexual marriage. As it seems children on the whole do better coming from stable, two-parent homes, children will do better on the whole to be placed in situations where it is more likely (not guaranteed, more likely) to consist of a stable, two-parent home. I wouldn’t say it was any better or worse when straight adoptive parents divorce than for gay adoptive parents to split up, just somewhat less likely.
The other factor is obviously how much power you want to give the state over parenting. The state is already involved in adoption, therefore it makes sense to make an effort to screen adoptive parents for suitability when it would not make sense to intervene for birth parents. Because intervention by the state (except in clear cases of abuse or neglect) would be an inappropriate expansion of state power in an area (birth parenting) where it does not exist to the same degree.
If there were some way to determine ahead of time if a straight couple were going to divorce, I would have no problem denying them an adoption in favor of some other stable couple. If that other stable couple were gay, I frankly don’t know if I would deny them an adoption or not. It is possible that there might be other drawbacks to gay adoption - lack of a role model of the opposite sex is the only one I can think of off the top of my head - but I would bet that most “research” on the topic would be so politicized as to be less than definitive.
But to answer the OP, no, I wouldn’t support intervention to remove birth children from gay parents. That doesn’t rise to the level of abuse sufficient for the state to intervene, IMO. There are lots of people who I don’t think should have children. But that is not clearly determined by whether they are gay or straight.
FWIW, I don’t think comparisons between abusive straight couples and ideal gay ones are very informative. It is always better for children not to be abused or neglected. Unless you can come up with some kind of disproportionate correlation between abuse and homosexuality/heterosexuality, I don’t think this is very clarifying.
I don’t think anyone actually holds that position. Two reasons: First, how could you be sure until they hit puberty? Second, the debate is centered on what is best for the child, and I can’t see how not being adopted would be good for anybody.
As to the OP, I must admit to being a little wary regarding gay adoption. Children in this type of family face certain disadvantages; most notably that homosexuality still isn’t completely accepted in our culture (which may cause problems for the child), and that the child is only being exposed to one gender at home (which may cause a slightly distorted worldview). However, I would never advocate removing a child from his gay birth parent just because the parent is gay. My opinion is that there should be a hierarchy in adoption. Straight parents first, gay parents or single parents second (I can’t make up my mind on which is a better situation for the child regarding these two), foster parents third, and orphanages as a last resort.
So, in other words a married straight couple is a more ideal situation than a gay couple, but a gay couple is still a damn sight better than an orphanage. The obvious disclaimer: I’m assuming all parents in these scenarious aare responsible and stable. Obviously, a loving gay couple is a better situation than a abusive or neglectfull straight couple.
Shodan, aren’t you implying a link between homosexuality and abuse? Indeed, you seem to be saying that merely being a homsexual parent is abuse:
Concerning the belief that homosexual relationships break up at higher rates, I found this information which seems to contradict that belief; unfortunately, they don’t reference which studies were used in determining their break up statistics the way they do under the other headings.
Moreover, I would argue that greater societal acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual relationships (including some kind of union/marriage) would tend to reduce the pressure placed on such relationships, and make it easier for couples to stay together longer.
Where is the kid living that they won’t have access to people of the other sex? Honestly, you might as well say that non-mixed-race couples are inferior parents because the kid doesn’t have access to role models of a different race.
Back in my temp days I worked for several months at a charity that handled, among other services, adoptions. Believe me, there are plenty of pubescent kids in the foster care system. Some of them must be gay.
I don’t think this last one is a given. Being adopted by a gay couple needn’t mean living with only a gay couple. There must be many gay couples with live-in friends or relatives (including children). And as someone who was raised in a single-sex household, I have a bit of a problem with the suggestion that such an environment is somehow harmful. What can be harmful is the tragic circumstances that may cause a household to become single-sex, like death, divorce, or abandonment, but a family headed by a gay couple wouldn’t necessarily be marked by these problems.
Lesbians are thought to more likely to establish long-lived, stable, domestic-violence averse relationships than straight couples. Would you agree that they should be given priority for adoption over straight couples as they more likely to provide a stable home for their adopted children?
Family breakdown is seen to be more common among certain racial minority groups than among white families. Dysfunctional and abusive families are also more prevalent among the poor than the rich. Would you agree that adoption should be reserved for those wealthy and white, as these are more likely to provide a good home for children?
Or, would you agree that we should cast aside notions of likelihood as a complete furphy and a front for homophobia, that we should cease class-based discrimination and judge prospective adoptive parents on the merits of their individual case for adoption?
Why would you rank sexual orientation before anything else? By saying “straight parents first”, you are automatically dissing a gay couple’s ability to parent simply because they’re gay. If you’re going to rank by sexual orientation; you might as well rank by personality, genetic proclivity toward cancer, how much mental illness has appeared in the families, IQ, or any number of “maybes” that would have a far greater impact on the welfare of the child.
This is utterly ridiculous. If they’re all responsible and stable, it shouldn’t matter whether they’re gay or not. There are people on these boards (or were, anyway) who were raised by gay parents and had no problem with it. There are lots of families that don’t broadcast it, but are raising children quite successfully without the input of a bunch of clueless homophobes.